Friday, August 29, 2014

People asked me what it was like going to a "Catholic law school." This symbolizes my experience--and why I wanted to bag it.

I dream that I am standing in line at a McDonald's, hungry, ready for a good hearty lunch. I look around. I see the smiling personnel in Mickey Dee's uniforms. I see the posters of smiling Ronald McDonald on the wall. I see the yellow Golden Arches sign out front. I have my ten dollar bill out.

So I get to the front of the line. I pay my ten dollars. Being Friday, I order Fish Filet Sandwich, Coke and Fries, and a Hot Apple Pie for after. They take my money, give me a handful of coins for change. Then they give me my lunch.

But wait. The lunch. It's not what I ordered. It has the McDonald's wrapping for a fish filet, but it's actually a Whopper. The Coke tastes funny: it's been replaced by a Pepsi, and the french fries are now a Wendy's baked potato. As for the Hot Apple Pie, it's not there at all.

"Uh, excuse me. I ordered a fish sandwich, a Coke, an apple pie, and french fries. What is this?"

"This is what we offer," the smiling face behind the counter replies.

"But it's not what I ordered!"

"Yes it is. You just didn't know it was what you ordered."

I go to the manager. "What is this nonsense? I thought this was a McDonald's. Where's my Fish? Where's my Classic Coke? What happened to my french fries and pie?"

"Well, you see," the manager says. "Institutions evolve. We've come a long way since we were founded. In the last two decades, we've diversified our menu. Not everybody likes McDonald's. Some people like Wendy's. Some people like Burger King. Some people like Pepsi. And hardly anybody eats Hot Apple Pie anymore."

"But every other fast food restaurant in town sells this same stuff. There's already a Wendy's down the street. There's already a Burger King over there. Pepsi is freely available. But this is the only McDonald's around."

"Exactly. If people didn't want Burger King, they wouldn't ask for it."

"Okay. Fine. So you've diversified. So you offer a wide selection. I don't care. This is still McDonald's. I want my Fish Filet Sandwich. I want a Coke, not a Pepsi. I want a hot apple pie. This is a McDonald's, and I want the McDonald's food I ordered."

"Well, we're a McDonald's. Yes. It's our institution's heritage. It's our background. It's where we come from. We're proud of our history. We honor the best McDonald's tradition by offering the best food available, regardless of the source."

"But this is a McDonald's Restaurant. You call yourself a McDonald's. You are obligated to serve McDonald's food if you are a McDonald's restaurant."

"Well, why don't you go to another McDonald's then?" says the smiling manager.

"In case you haven't noticed, this is the only McDonald's in this entire city. If I wanted to swallow a Whopper, I would have gone to the Burger King on New Jersey Avenue. There are seven fast food restaurants in this burg, but none of them even pretends to be a McDonald's. Except this one."

"So sit down and shut up and eat your meal," the manager says.

"No thank you."

I turn to the customers. I wave my arms at them to get their attention. "Hello! Anybody here? Anybody awake? They're lying about this being a McDonald's! It only looks like a McDonald's! You won't get anything that's really McDonald's here!"

"Shhhh!!!!" hissses the staff behind the counter, no longer smiling, chanting in unison. "Be quiet! Do You Want to Raise a Ruckus? Do You Want to Cause a Controversy? It'll Hurt Our Image! It'll Lower the Value of a Meal from This Institution! It'll Threaten Our Accreditation with The Salad Bar Association!"

"I don't care. This is McDonald's. I paid good money for a McDonald's meal. I want a McDonald's Fish Filet, dripping with Special Sauce. I want a Coca-Cola, a large Coca- Cola, with just enough ice to make it cold. I want a Hot Apple Pie that would melt a hole through the floor. I want a little baggie with fried potatoes in it and enough salt to make Lot's wife turn green with envy. I ordered it, I paid for it, and I want it now."

Now the staff is hostile. "I don't like your tone!" "You'll alienate all the whopper-eaters and Wendy's fans." "You fanatic! You want to take us back to the old days when we only served McDonald's food!"

The manager stares at me. "It's obvious that you're intolerant of Wendy's and Burger King! You're an enemy of Diversity! What are you, some kind of fast-food fascist? I'll bet you have a secret agenda to turn this institution into a White Castle!"

I throw up my hands. "Just tell me one thing. If we're not a McDonald's, why do we pretend it's still a McDonald's?"

An grin from the guy behind the counter.

"We're working on that."

And with that, I get thrown out of the restaurant.

============
This article first appeared in EUTOPIA #4, Fall 1997. I'm still waiting for my fish.

The Michigan Silverback

5/5. With Trample.

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This was not written for chiefs. (general consternation) Hear me! Hear this! Among my people, we carry many such words as this from many lands, many worlds. Many are equally good and are as well respected, but wherever we have gone, no words have said this thing of importance in quite this way. Look at these three words written larger than the rest, with a special pride never written before or since. Tall words proudly saying We the People. That which you call E Plebnista was not written for the chiefs or the kings or the warriors or the rich and powerful, but for all the people! Down the centuries, you have slurred the meaning of the words, 'We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this constitution.' These words and the words that follow were not written only for the Yangs, but for the Kohms as well!

CLOUD WILLIAM: The Kohms?

KIRK: They must apply to everyone or they mean nothing! Do you understand?

I like bats much better than bureaucrats. I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of “Admin”. The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid “dens of crime” that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern.... -- C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

DEMOCRACY is the word with which you must lead them by the nose.... you can use the word democracy to sanction in his thought the most degrading (and also the least enjoyable) of all human feelings.... under the name of Envy it has been known to humans for thousands of years... you can sanction it -- make it respectable and even laudable -- by the incantatory use of the word democratic. - Screwtape Proposes a Toast

I honor and love you. But I shall obey God rather than you. And while I have life and strength, I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy. For know that this is the command of God; and I believe that no greater good has ever happened in the state than my service to the God. For I do nothing but go about persuading you all, old and young alike, not to take thought for your persons or your properties, but first and chiefly to take care about the greatest improvement of the soul. This is my teaching.

And if this is the doctrine that corrupts the youth, then I am a mischievous person.

But if anyone says that this is not my teaching, then he is speaking an untruth. . . . - Socrates, by way of Plato and Steven Schwartz

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§ It's said that an infinite number of monkeys typing away at keyboards will eventually reproduce the complete works of Shakespeare. § What they don't say is that the total amount of matter in the universe, if turned into monkeys and typewriters, powered by all energy present in the universe, to feed the monkeys in question, working for a hundred billion years, can't possibly create as much as the first act of Hamlet. § One Infinite Monkey--i.e., a human being--can write all of Shakespeare's works in the course of a single lifetime... if that Infinite Monkey happens to be Shakespeare. § You are an Infinite Monkey. So am I. Amphibians are we, half spirit and half worm: monkeys in the sense that we are Steve Gerber's “hairless apes, trapped in a world we never made”; infinite in the sense that we are also immortal and we shall still live when the sun is a black dwarf. § If you recognize, like this old silverback, that we are a duality and not a mere mechanical emptiness--you may find my writings amusing. If so, welcome. Stay a while. And feel free to comment. (But keep it clean.)